Hearts on Fire
by Shini02
Summary: Oneshot. He knows prayers are never answered and wishes don't come true. But sometimes that's a good thing. Past WuFeixMeiran, midly implied WuFeixSally, eventual WuFeixRei.


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing but this fanfic.

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**Hearts on Fire**

He was _supposed_ to have the week off. That was, until Miss Po decided to recruit him along with her for another earth-bound mission. She said she couldn't have him slacking off, and the smile had been too sweet for her own good. He told her he was no slacker and if she continued to smile in such a way he would be forced to take the risk of being fired for pulling a disappearing act. Her smile had only broadened as she dragged him out of the Preventers' headquarters, ignoring his threats that would have meant much more had her grip not been so firm around his hand.

Most of the time, he really hated the way Sally could wrap him around her little finger with something as silly as a heartfelt smile.

A day later, they were stationed on earth, in Japan. Their given mission was nothing more than a typical sweep of the area, to see if the rumors surrounding some of the boryokudan were true. It would be a shame if the government crumbled because the local law enforcement was too frightened to investigate the sudden, but minuscule, rise in crime.

They could work on the case tomorrow, Sally said with a gleam in her eyes that made WuFei's skin crawl. Or was it a shiver running down his spine? He could never tell. Today, Sally said, they should relax a little and get to know their surroundings better.

Of course, WuFei was certain she had intended they sight-see together. Sally was trying her best to hide the frustrated clenching of her fists as she went down one street and left him to head off in the opposite direction. He had certainly noticed and it made him smirk just a little. He had simply pointed out that they would cover more ground if they went in separate directions, then later meet up at the hotel they were staying in.

The smell of burning incense caught his attention. Sandalwood, he recognized it as. He followed the scent, simply because he had nowhere else to be and it couldn't hurt to check out one of the local shinto shrines. In his line of work, one could never be too careful. He had lost count of how many religious sects turned out to be nothing more than bloodthirsty cults eager to cut the government down to size and take all political power into their own hands.

He found the source of the burning sandalwood in a matter of minutes. It was no wonder the scent had carried so well down the street, the shrine rested at the top of a small hill. He noticed the smell of sandalwood was now mixed with the faint scent of sakura blossoms. Again, it was no surprise. The shrine itself was surrounded by cherry blossom trees and the blossoms were beginning to scatter. It looked civil enough, he decided, but it wouldn't hurt to look around. Just to be safe.

He climbed the flight of stairs slowly and when he reached the top, again, he noticed nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. Except, maybe, for the strange young man sweeping up some of sakura petals and humming an off-key tune to himself. WuFei idly wondered how the man could see anything with those thick, messy bangs in front of his eyes before he walked on passed him, heading for the shrine itself.

He passed an open shoji screen, caught a strong smell of fire on a warm wind and peered inside. A young miko was meditating in front of a large fire. Her eyes were closed and her hands were moving slowly, creating signs that depicted planets and their corresponding elements. He what the signs meant simply because he could hear her whisper either a planetary or elemental name with each different signal of her hand. It was more than likely an optical illusion due to the intensity of the blaze, but whenever she murmured something about fire or mars, he could have sworn the flames grew bigger and burned brighter for a split second in time.

Her eyes opened and before WuFei knew what was happening, she was staring at him. He was sure she was scowling at him for a moment, but she was suddenly smiling as she stood, wiping at her brow with the back of her hand.

"Welcome to the Hikawa Shrine," she said politely as she stepped out of the room, letting the sacred fire burn on its own accord now. "Are you here as a tourist?" She asked. Was it so obvious he was not from around here? Probably. "Or have you come to make a wish or just to pray?"

"Ah... None of that. I'm just sight-seeing, I suppose," he said carefully, eyeing the young woman in front of him. He had seen a few miko in his life but none were quite as bold as this one. Her long raven hair was loose, and those eyes of hers had a gleam in them that he couldn't really match to any specific emotion or aspect of her underlying personality.

"Sight-seeing, huh?" The shrine maiden smiled and made a motion with her hand to her left. "Then do it right. Come make a wish, anyway."

He shook his head, politely declining her offer. "Thanks, but no. Really. I don't really believe in wishes or prayers anymore. No offense, of course."

She waved the notion off with her hand. "None taken. At least let me read you your fortune?" There was that smile of hers again. Charming and luring and so damn hard not to stare at.

"Fine," he huffed. There could be no harm in having his fortune read. Could there?

"Give me your hand," she said and held out her own hand.

WuFei was reluctant but did as she asked, sighing as she held the back of his hand gently in hers. She traced the lines on his palm and spoke of his mind, the way his thought processes worked. A generally black and white area, she said. It wasn't good to categorize everything so, she said. He should open his mind a little more, and he would be surprised how his outlook would change on many things. Probably for the better. She told him about his life, about dramatic changes in the past she felt sorry for intruding on. But there were also changes to be made in the future, ones she said she couldn't pin-point, but the changes would happen and happen soon. She finished by informing him that love had not been kind to him in the past and the emotional scars had yet to fully heal – but if he had the patience, there was a destined someone somewhere out there waiting to help him through the healing process.

He closed his hand and pulled it away from her, thanking her curtly and leaving without a second glance at the priestess.

Fortune-telling had been on his list of skeptical things. Until now. Just by looking at his hand, she had dug her way deeper into his psyche than even he dared to venture.

When he met up with Sally that night, she said he looked like he had seen a ghost. He told his partner it was no phantom he encountered, just a shrine maiden with too much time on her hands that introduced him to pieces of his soul he would have preferred to forget existed. Sally gave him a pat on the back and assured him that most young fortune-tellers were fakes eager to make a name for themselves, that the girl was probably just making lucky guesses.

"You do look like a prude, you know?" Sally laughed. "A real cynic at first glance."

"You're too kind," he said with a roll of his eyes before he went into the bathroom to take a shower. If Sally couldn't take his mind off of that girl's fortune-telling (the way he had hoped she could), he hoped standing under a relatively hot spray for an hour or so would do the trick.

It didn't.

The shower left him with nothing more than reddened skin and wrinkled fingers.

During the duration of their stay in Japan, they found the rumors of the boryokudan to be just that, rumors. Sally made the most of their trip regardless of the outcome, shopping and becoming acquainted with the Japanese culture. She had even dragged WuFei out for some "much needed" kimono shopping. She left the little shop with an ice blue kimono that had a white smoke-like design on it. WuFei left, reluctantly, with a black kimono that had no design, just simple white trims on the sleeves and collar. Sally said it looked like he was ready to go to a funeral. He said he didn't care.

But on the day before they were scheduled to leave, WuFei refused to go to the "nice shinto shrine" Sally found on a hilltop. She laughed and said he was no fun at all if the miko there was the one that had given him the creeps days ago. He said he would be waiting at the hotel for her to return, and informed her quickly that he was not afraid of the girl.

Interested in the girl, was much more accurate. He hadn't been able to get her out of his mind, couldn't rid her ghost from his pleasant thoughts or his cruel ones. No one had ever gotten so close to him so fast. No one else except for his wife – but Meiran was a part of the past the shrine maiden urged him to stop holding onto so tightly. Not let go of completely, just simply release the memory from the stranglehold he held it in. Something he wasn't really ready to do, even five years after Meiran's death.

When the shuttled arrived later that evening to pick them up, Sally told WuFei of her encounter with the miko, whose name was Rei Hino. Rei had showed her around the temple, then read her fortune. Other than catching her name, WuFei chose to ignore the rest of Sally's story and stare at the earth as they drew further and further away from it.

He was given the following week off. He booked a flight back to earth and told no one where he was disappearing to.

He ended up back in Japan, back on the hilltop. The sakura trees had stopped shedding their blossoms and now the branches were covered in almost-white flowers. It was pretty, but he decided the shrine looked better with the pale petals falling all around it.

He walked passed the room he had seen Rei in, and sure enough she was there. He watched her meditating, repeating the same routine she had been doing the first time. He didn't give her a chance to catch him watching her this time, walking around the temple until he found what he was looking for. He took the small piece of wood with an arrow engraved on it and picked up the old fashioned fountain pen on the table in front of the shrine covered in wishes and prayers. Without haste he scrawled his wish down quickly, his writing resembling chicken-scratch since he took no time to take care in the way he formed his words.

He just wanted to forget her, forget he ever met Rei Hino and forget the impression she had made on his mental state and his deeply hidden emotional side.

He hung the ema on the shrine and started the walk back to the large red gate that separated the outside world from that of the shinto. He stopped half-way down the stairs when Rei ran passed him. She wasn't wearing her red and white garb, instead she was dressed in a long black skirt and a tight red sweater. He watched until she stopped to catch her breath at the bottom of the stairs, laughing quietly with the other four girls that had been waiting for her.

He continued down the stairs and gave her the smallest of smiles as he strode passed her, ignoring the cooing of the other girls.

There was a reason why he never made wishes anymore.

He knew they never came true.

He had only intended to stay for a day or so to resolve his emotional turmoil, instead he booked a room at the hotel he and Sally had stayed at for the rest of his time off and made daily visits to the Hikawa shrine.

-End


End file.
